


Children of the Blitz

by Shabby Abby (KJPearl)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2384864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KJPearl/pseuds/Shabby%20Abby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Susan was something else. She told stories with such passion. She painted vibrant pictures of a magical land.<i></i></i><br/>Susan learns to deal with her memories of a different world by telling stories. But will anyone understand the truth about Narnia?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of the Blitz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nasimwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasimwrites/gifts).



> Prompt: I've been dreaming of a Susan/whoever-becomes-her-husband fic for ages! How does she meet him, how does she deal with the train crash, how does she remember her siblings, how does he deal with the Narnia stories? I imagine him as a simple englishman with a very sweet heart that instantly begins to understand her. I love the idea of her telling him the stories and him gradually realizing that they're actually true accounts and she doesn't even have to break it to him, he already knows. I love the idea of him taking her to the Professor's old house and seeing the wardrobe. I love the idea of him writing the stories and reading them to their children... an account of their life together until her death, or his. That would be perfect.

He knew as soon as he saw her that she’d had a troubled past. But they were the children of the Blitz, the days when England had been on fire, so who wasn’t a little scarred? City dwellers had been ripped from their homes. They left the familiar, crowded streets for empty pastures. Joined houses where the nearest neighbors lived miles away. Lonely houses, the city children tended to think, as lonely as they were.  Meanwhile farmers were overcrowded with refuges and overburdened with the feeding of armies. There was little time for childish joys in those days.

Susan was a city girl, he could tell, she had their shrewd look. The look one got from impermanent homes and rented apartments, from navigating streets full of strangers, rife with the possibility of violence. She was street-smart and walked everywhere with purpose. She passed through life speedily, not stopping for a moment. She was economical with her words, never using more than necessary, but always making her message clear. He himself was a country boy, raised on open plains and growing fields. He found friendship in speech and solace in silence. He wandered through his life focusing on details. He supposes that’s how he caught her eye.

He’s pretty sure he loved Susan from the moment they met at university. They’d shared a Literature class and had ended up proof-reading each other’s work. While Matthew had always been smart, he knew the classics as well as the back of his hand, Susan was something else. She told stories with such passion. She painted vibrant pictures of a magical land. She spoke of talking animals, of fauns and centaurs. Her stories had a power, they reached deep inside of you, to the secret part of your heart that never stopped believing in magic, and they told you they were real.

Most people simply accepted that Susan Pevensie was an exceptional story teller, but Matthew with his usual perception, had always wondered if there was something more. He’d searched some greater reason to believe these tales, but did not find one until tragedy struck.

One day Susan missed class, when she returned the next day Matthew could tell something was wrong. There was something tired and subdued within her bright soul. She masked it well, but he’d known her for almost a year at this point and knew she was not well. He approached her after class.

“Susan,” he asked, “are you alright?”

“No,” she responded, a quiver in her voice, “Not really.”

“What happened?”

“My family. My family is dead,” she began to cry.

“Oh, Susan,” he wrapped his arms around her, “I’m so sorry.” He held her until she calmed.

Eventually, Susan took a deep breath and collected herself, seeming embarrassed at her outburst, “Thank you, and sorry for sobbing all over your shirt.”

“That’s alright, what else are friends for.”

Susan wouldn’t speak about her family again for many years. However, a few weeks later Matthew read a story of hers. It was not a story for class, but rather one she handed to him with a hopeful look.

“Tell me what you think,” she said.

So he read her story. It took place in the same magical world he knew so well from her writing, but was different from the others he had read. This story contained humans, children who had escaped to the country during the Blitz and, while there, discovered a magical world. The truth of the story could not have been clearer had Susan used her own name. This tale was true, just like all the others, and now he knew how. Susan and her siblings, amidst the destruction of the war, had found a doorway to a magical world. A world ruled by evil, but still full of good. And it was here that Susan had learnt the wisdom and strength she bore to this day.

Matthew recognized Susan in the eldest daughter, Gentle. How she used logic to organize her world, even when it spun out of control and into the absurd. He found her in the way Gentle gave careful advice to protect those she cared for, looking out for both her older and younger siblings. The way she worried over her missing brother and cried over the lion god, but still continued to fight the witch.

It was at that point Matthew knew he was truly in love. The more he learnt about Susan the more he admired her, he already knew he enjoyed conversation with her, and could easily imagine spending the rest of his life with her.

“I read the story,” he told her after class the next day, “thank you for sharing it with me. It was beautiful.”

Susan looked at him for a moment, piercing eyes gazing into his soul. Evidently she liked what she saw because she smiled and said, “I’m glad you liked it.”

“I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime, for tea.”

“A date?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“I’d love to,” a wide grin spread across her face. A smile full of the joy Matthew hoped he could inspire in her for years to come. He felt his smile spread to match hers.

Years later there would be a house. A large house, with enough room for Susan, Matthew and their three children to live comfortably. These children would be raised on stories of a land that was both far away and right round the corner. Stories of witches and gods and creatures of all sorts would fill their minds. These children would eventually grow up and live ordinary lives, without strange journeys, but they would always know that magic was real. That out there, somewhere, was a forest filled with worlds. They would know that every life is an adventure and that the most mundane of people are great. They would learn about the responsibility of a queen, and spend their lives helping others.

As for Susan, she would live to be old, and see many grandchildren. She would visit the Professor’s house, which he had given her in his will, several times. She never opened the wardrobe that once brought her to Narnia, and eventually she rented the house to tenants. She lived her life confidant in her path, and died certain she would reach Aslan’s Country.


End file.
